


At the Gates of Your Fortress

by subjunctive



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Airships, Alternate Universe - Boneshaker Fusion, Alternate Universe - Not Related, Alternate Universe - Western, F/M, Jon "YOLO" Snow, Jon Snow Knows Nothing, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Sansa, Slow Burn, Steampunk elements, Work In Progress, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:49:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8165695
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjunctive/pseuds/subjunctive
Summary: She folded the letter over, ran her fingers across it so many times she lost count, as she thought of what to do. But she already knew; it was only a matter of steeling herself to the task. She'd have to go inside the Wall after him, and bring him back before he got himself killed.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fusion with the book _Boneshaker_ by Cherie Priest, and will loosely follow some of the plot points. If you're familiar with the book, you can probably guess some exciting stuff that's coming, but obviously major things have been changed too--Sansa not being Jon's mother being the most obvious!
> 
> I've tried to write so that the story is comprehensible without readers knowing anything about the book. If that's something I don't succeed at--please let me know.
> 
> The title is from "Fortress" by Bear's Den.
> 
> Many and more thanks to dansunedisco for beta-reading!

It wasn’t until Sansa was shaking out her umbrella on the tiny porch that she noticed her guest.

She barely refrained from jumping. “Who are you?” she blurted, giving the umbrella a final twitch to cover her nerves.

“Sorry to bother you, ma’am.” The stranger moved from where he’d been standing—resting against the woodpile, really—and toward her. He wasn’t a very imposing figure, despite his size, for he clutched his hat in one hand and papers in the other, and he regarded her with an acute nervousness. “I was hoping we could talk.”

For a moment her heart seized in her chest, and she thought, _Jon? Did something happen to Jon?_ But then she looked closer. This man wasn’t in the black uniform of the Watch, and to be frank, he didn’t seem the type.

“You haven’t answered my question,” she pointed out.

He gave a tremble of a laugh. “Quite right, you’re—I’m Samwell Tarly.” He made to offer her his hand to shake, but then realized he had none free and gave her an apologetic look.

“I suppose you know who I am,” she said cautiously, “since you’re here.”

His head bobbed. “Miss Sansa Stark.”

His greeting was courteous enough, but she couldn’t help but be suspicious of a stranger showing up uninvited on her doorstep. She resisted the urge to cross her arms over herself.

“We could speak out here, if you’d prefer?” Mr. Tarly offered.

“You might come in, if you’re only here to talk. I doubt letting strange men into my house in the evening could make my reputation worse than it already is,” Sansa said, perhaps a bit too crisply, for there was that apologetic look again. She pretended to ignore it as she unlocked the door. Mr. Tarly followed her in.

“It’s about your father,” he said, as she distractedly set down her things.

 _When is it not?_ she thought. _When it’s not about Petyr, I suppose._

She invited him to sit while she stoked a fire, and asked him if he’d like some tea. He accepted gratefully. She’d noticed he hadn’t come with an umbrella of his own. Bustling about with the tea gave him time to get comfortable, and by the time she served him he was almost smiling.

At least he wasn’t one of the angry ones. Then again, the others might be worse.

“Now what is it you’re here for?” she asked, as soon as she seated herself.

“I’m writing a book,” he replied. “About the Boneshaker accident . . . and your father.”

It had been more than five years since the drilling accident that had destroyed most of the town of Winterfell, but that was not something Sansa wanted to discuss, so she directed her reply to his second topic. “Why would you want to write a book about a criminal?”

He leaned forward eagerly, heedless of her forbidding tone. “Well, you see, there’s some that think he wasn’t a criminal—at least, not the way people think.”

Her cup clinked against the saucer. “Is that so.”

“He was a lawman, after all.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time a lawman succumbed to corruption.”

“No, that’s true, but—do you really think he did? You’re his own daughter. I’d like your opinion.” He was taking notes.

“I don’t know anything about what happened that day,” she said, truthfully enough. “I wasn’t here. I didn’t come back until long after he’d been returned, and he wasn’t exactly in speaking condition by that time.”

“He was brought here?”

She cursed herself. She’d wanted to end the conversation, not prolong it. “Yes. He’d been laid out on the bed and covered with a sheet.”

“By whom?”

“I’m not sure. They were gone by the time I came back. The criminals he released, perhaps.”

“He was too affected by the Blight? Is that how he passed? Pardon me, ma’am.” Mr. Tarly flushed.

“It’s fine.” Sansa did not have many delicate feminine scruples, anymore. “Yes, he died from the Blight not long after I came home. The Blight didn’t start him walking again, or it didn’t have enough time. Jon and I burned him and buried his bones out back. That was before we knew a shot to the head worked just fine, you see.”

Her guest craned his neck as if he could see through the wall to her father’s makeshift grave, and she had a brief reprieve from the awful sktriching of his pen.

“Miss Stark,” he said, drawing her gaze. “Doesn’t it seem odd? For them to bring him back so respectfully?”

“I wouldn’t know what seems odd for hardened criminals. Perhaps they wanted the money everyone thinks he was offered. Perhaps they took it. We certainly didn’t get any of it. As you can well see.” The hot bite of bitterness in her words couldn’t be disguised.

“Perhaps there wasn’t any money,” Mr. Tarly suggested quietly.

“Who’s to know either way? Do you have any evidence?”

Just as she’d thought, he shook his head. “Not directly. But I’ve spoken to some of the men from the jail, and they all said—”

“Because they have nothing to gain from their jailbreak being an act of justice rather than corruption,” Sansa pointed out.

Mr. Tarly squinted, his pen poised. “So you really think he did it?”

Exhaustion fell upon her like a sudden blow. “I think it doesn’t matter what I think, because it can’t be proven either way, and people will think what they think regardless. I have to live with that no matter what the truth is.”

“I see.” 

Sansa rose to take their empty cups and begin preparing for supper. She was surprised by the dusky purple light slanting through the window. They’d been sitting here longer than she thought. Jon would be home soon, if he hadn’t picked up an additional shift at the Wall, which he did often enough.

“My father did believe in the law,” she said, stirring water into a dry soup mix. _All criminals believe in the law,_ she thought, but did not say. It was something she remembered Petyr saying once.

“Those men he broke out of the jail would have been condemned to death by the Blight without trial if he hadn’t come back for them,” her guest said softly, and Sansa inclined her head in acknowledgement.

“That’s true. And he also committed treason and endangered the surviving townspeople’s lives by doing so. I suppose some laws were more important to him than others, if money wasn’t the motivation.”

He must have heard the finality in her voice, for Mr. Tarly stood. “Thank you very much for your hospitality, Miss Stark. I appreciate your humoring me. When the book is published, I’ll be sure to put in my notes your assistance.”

For a moment she thought he was being sarcastic, but he looked sincere. She nodded stiffly.

He bobbed his head once more, and saw himself out.

Her thoughts jangled like a ring of keys. As she stirred the soup, she listened to Mr. Tarly’s clunky footsteps pause on the porch. Through the window floated the sound of voices: men’s, both. Her heart twisted to think of Jon listening to what their visitor had to say. Whatever they were saying, the conversation didn’t last long. Soon enough Jon was coming in and the writer was gone. She busied herself, not meeting his eye.

When there was nothing left for her to do but wait, and he could tell, then he spoke. “I met Mr. Tarly outside.”

She didn’t say anything, just murmured in acknowledgement. 

“I invited him to stay for dinner, but he declined. I think he thought he wouldn’t be welcome. Did you dislike him so much?”

“I have no objection to his person,” Sansa protested.

“Just his ideas, then?” Jon sighed. “Yes, he told me what he was working on.”

“Then you know how pointless it is.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so opposed to finding out the truth,” he said, frustration evident.

“I’m not opposed to it. I think it can’t be done. There’s a difference.” _And digging up skeletons better left buried would bring as much pain as satisfaction,_ she didn’t add.

“Ned Stark was a good man. He deserved better than this, better than how people remember him—”

“Better than a daughter like me, I know!” Mortified, she nearly clapped her hands over her mouth, as if she could force the admission back in.

“Sansa, no—” But a faint patina of guilt overlaid his words.

“It’s true enough, no matter what you meant.” The bitterness was back, and hot tears were gathering. She pushed them down as best she could. “You may as well be Father’s son, for all your stalwart defense of him. Probably a better son than I’ve been a daughter.”

“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.” But his words were gentle, and so was the hand that reached for her shoulder, urging her to turn and face him.

There was a spark of something in his gray eyes, a fervor that came and went whenever the specter of her father arose between them. But it was just a spark. It could be smothered.

“I know it hurts you to speak of it,” he said. “But think, Sansa—if there was a way to prove Mr. Stark wasn’t the man everyone thinks he was . . .”

 _There’s not,_ she almost said, but his eyes were too pleading.

“I know as well as you what kind of man my father was,” she said gently. His hand rose to her face. “Even if others don’t.”

Jon studied her. “If they’re wrong about him,” he said quietly, “they might be wrong about other matters as well. I know things aren’t easy for you.”

Her heart ached at his words. She gently extracted herself from his grip. “Jon . . .”

“No one ever proved conclusively Mr. Baelish was involved in the accident. And even if he was, you had nothing to do with it.”

His words energized him even as they exhausted her. He turned from her, looking to pace. 

“Your opinion matters more to me than all the rest of them combined,” she said. It was the truth.

His eyes alighted on the contents of her bag, and he stilled. Sansa nearly swore. She should have disposed of them at the factory, but they would have found their way back to her cubby in that case. She’d meant to get rid of them before Jon got home, but she’d set her bag down, flustered by Mr. Tarly’s unexpected presence and probing questions.

It was too late to distract him from it. Jon pulled out her vandalized work gloves. 

“What’s this?” he asked, though by his tone he had obviously figured it out.

“Just a joke by one of the other women at the plant.” They’d been filled with red paint, rendering them unusable, and wolf paws had been drawn on the backs.

“A joke,” he repeated.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said.

“It does matter, Sansa, it does.” He ran a hand through his hair again; it was looking rather wild. She misliked the desperate gleam in his gray eyes. Desperate men did stupid things. Stupid, dangerous things, and Jon knew better than many men how to be stupid and dangerous.

“Not to me. And that’s what matters, doesn’t it? Please, Jon.”

“It’s not right that they should—it wasn’t your fault!”

“I know,” she returned evenly. Sometimes she thought she knew it better than Jon, despite his staunch defense of her. “Do you want some soup?”

He huffed. “This isn’t over.” But he took the bowl she offered, and they pulled the chairs up to the fire together to eat. The next few minutes heard the clink of spoons against bowls. She had almost begun to hope the conversation was over when he began to mutter.

“The wolf’s paw . . .” He cast a dire look back at her gloves. He had the subject tight in his teeth and it would be a chore to make him let go, she saw with exasperation.

“And red paint for blood. I have a creative antagonist, you can see,” she said tartly, and he almost smiled.

“Has it happened before?”

“No,” she lied. “I have a spare pair somewhere. It’s not a real inconvenience.”

Her soft placation only served to irritate him further. He frowned mightily into his bowl, dark brows drawn together in a thundercloud. He looked as sullen as he ever had as a child.

“They know the accident wasn’t your fault. They shouldn’t go after you like they do.”

“There’s no one else around for them to blame. Why not the virtueless hussy connected to the primary suspect, and the daughter of a criminal?” Sansa tried to smile, but it came out too sharp.

“Sansa, you mustn’t say such things about yourself.”

She found herself looking away from his distressingly earnest gaze. “If I protested, it wouldn’t matter. It might even make things worse.”

Jon sighed. “There’s no use arguing with you, is there?”

“Not about this. What they think about Petyr, what they think about Father… It doesn’t matter. We know the truth, don’t we?”

“Not the whole truth,” he murmured, but he let her take his empty bowl and kiss him on the forehead, as she did every night before they went to separate beds.

“Enough of it, anyway.” She kept her free hand on his shoulder as she straightened up. “I do appreciate you, Jon, and everything you’ve done for me. I want you to know that.”

He covered her hand with his and gave it a squeeze. For a few long moments he didn’t let go, and she’d swear his gaze was as hot as coals as he looked upon her. But then the moment passed, and he let go, and he was only Jon again. Jon, who was only looking after her out of duty and loyalty and perhaps a bit of loneliness, if she’d judged aright.

“You could marry me,” he suggested.

It wasn’t the first time he’d suggested such, and it wouldn’t be the last. Every time her answer was the same.

“That’s not necessary, Jon.”

“People talk, you know.”

Sansa almost laughed at the graveness in his words, as if he were divulging some solemn secret. She suspected she knew far more about what people said of them than Jon did; there weren’t many that would insult him to his face. “If we marry now, after years of living together, they’ll keep doing so, _and_ think all their past talk was true.”

He scowled. He was stubborn, but she could lead him around. “It was you who said we shouldn’t care what they think,” he pointed out.

“So then why marry at all?” she said lightly. He didn’t answer immediately, and her heartbeat quickened as she thought of the reasons he might give.

But he said only, “You’re right, of course,” and gave her a tired smile.

She returned it, though it was more difficult than she expected. “Of course I am,” she teased, and if there had been a strange air between them, it dissipated.

He cast another look at her ruined gloves before retiring to his bed, but he said nothing else, and Sansa assumed that was the end of that.

* * *

The next night, Jon didn’t come home. Sansa didn’t think much of it, at first. Sometimes the Wall needed another Watcher for one reason or another, and Jon was dutiful to the point of excess, always trying to prove something. It was dangerous work, being a Watcher and guarding what was left of the town from what was inside the Wall, and Sansa would be lying if she said it didn’t make her nervous to think of him out there, in the cold, dark night. But he was good at his job, or so she’d heard from others, and she knew he would not wish to die in some blaze of glory, if only for the sake of the dependent cousin he would leave behind.

When he hadn’t returned by the following morning, however, worry took deeper root in her heart.

No one had come from the Watch to inform her anything had happened. She rapped on the door to his bedroom, cautious for propriety’s sake even if she had done the same the night before and there had been no answer. It was silent still. The door creaked as she pushed it open.

Jon kept to himself. Sansa had never been inside his room before. It felt embarrassing to peek in when he wasn’t there, as if she were a voyeur destroying his hard-won privacy.

At first glance, it looked almost barren. Sansa did what she could for her own room, trying to make it feel more like home with what little scraps and decorations they could afford, but Jon had made no such attempts with his own. There were a few things on the shelf, though, a small carved statue of a wolf among them.

The narrow bed was neatly made, and empty but for a piece of folded parchment laid on the pillow.

The sight of it sent her heart hammering in her chest. She opened it with shaking fingers, recognizing Jon’s untidy scrawl immediately.

It was not a long letter. Sansa scanned it once, twice, thrice, and sat down hard on the edge of the bed. Her head rang hollowly, reverberating like a struck bell. She’d made a terrible misjudgment. Her reassurances had not been persuasive, or they’d fallen on deaf ears, and she had not realized. Not in a thousand years would she have imagined he would—

How long had he been gone? Had he left after his shift, or simply missed work entirely? She prayed it was the former, that he had not been gone so long beyond the Wall. Where would he go? She thought of Petyr’s house, and shuddered.

Seized by a sudden impulse, Sansa began throwing open every drawer and cabinet in Jon's room, as if she might find the man himself hiding there. There had to be something here, she thought. There had to be something, something of _him_ , he couldn't just leave her and die and have left nothing of himself behind—

There was nothing in the lockbox, only clothes in the drawers. No hidden compartments that she could find. Her fear mounted until she ran her hand under the thin, hard mattress, and found an oilskin bundle.

In the bundle was a stack of papers and clippings she'd never seen before. Most were from four or five years ago, after the accident and then the jailbreak. Sansa spread them out over the bed.

Many of them were about Father, as she expected. Newspaper articles and the like. She scanned one. It was about the Blight jailbreak and detailed some of the construction of the Wall. _Sheriff Stark Breaks Out Criminals Before Completion of Wall_. It was one of the less salacious headlines.

But there were some about her, too. A few were more judicious in their speculations about her relationship with Petyr, citing his friendship with her mother; others clearly salivated for scandal. 

_Authorities searched the home of Petyr Baelish, but no insight into the Boneshaker incident was found. His known companion, Miss Sansa Stark, cannot provide an explanation for the testing of the drilling machine that nearly collapsed the city’s foundations and killed at least thirty-seven people._

_Miss Sansa Stark held for questioning about Petyr Baelish. She did not offer comment on his disappearance. Her role in the Boneshaker calamity remains unclear._

Some thought she had been used for her connections; others thought her the mastermind behind the accident, pulling Petyr's strings like a puppetmaster. Neither theory made her popular among the folk of Winter Town. After all, she was the only one left to blame; Qyburn and Petyr were both long gone, but the people's anger still simmered, the Wall itself a daily reminder of their losses.

Jon must have sat here, reading them, she thought, picturing it. She wondered how many times he had looked them over, studied them, letting himself grow angry, then pushing it down. Gods. She'd missed everything, assuming Jon's placid, solemn exterior—only occasionally troubled by anger—was the genuine article. What kind of puppetmaster would she make? If only they knew! A hysterical giggle bubbled in her throat.

No. No. She could not fall to pieces now.

She picked up Jon's letter, read it a fourth time.

_Sansa,_

_I've left, but I'll be back soon. I'm going inside the Wall. There might be information there about the accident and the jailbreak, or evidence. Please, stay safe until I return._

_Love,  
Jon_

She folded the letter over, ran her fingers across it so many times she lost count, as she thought of what to do. But she already knew; it was only a matter of steeling herself to the task. She'd have to go in after him, and bring him back before he got himself killed.

* * *

The headquarters of the Watch were named Castle Black. It was something of a local joke. In truth, the stone walls were not truly black, but covered in grime no one bothered to clean; and in size and shape, it was closer to a shack than a castle. Someone had even built a little turret out of wood in one corner of the building, and on a normal day the sight of it would have made Sansa laugh.

It was not a normal day. Sansa strode through the front door, ignoring the squawk of the lone guardsman, who woke from his stupor to chase her inside.

"Where is he?" she demanded of the next person she saw. He was a man, tall, broad, and strapping, and his feet were propped up on the table as he picked his teeth. At the sight of her his boots thudded to the ground.

"Pyp, who the fuck's this?" the man demanded, looking flummoxed. "Pardon me, ma'am," he added belatedly.

"She just _ran in_ ," said the fellow behind her. "No one ever tries to come _in_ , Grenn!"

"I can see how you might be having a problem with that," the man named Grenn said dryly, then turned to her. "What _are_ you doing here, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Jon Snow is what I'm doing here," she snapped.

The light of awareness dawned in his eyes, and at that Sansa _knew_ he knew both who she was and what Jon had done.

"You know he's gone inside," she said, without waiting for a response. "How could you let this happen? Isn't this your job, guarding the Wall?"

"We keep the wights in, aye," he said with a hint of pique.

They didn't seem to understand. How could they not? Jon was _inside the Wall_ , with hordes of wights and the Blight and he was part of the Watch, who needed every man. How could they be so calm?

"Miss Stark," the big one said, holding his hands up in a placating manner. "Didn't he talk to you?"

"In a _letter_ left on his _pillow_! _How could you let him do this?_ " she hissed, as if he himself were personally to blame. For all she knew, he was. They all were, letting him do it.

Grenn took a wary step back from her, and his expression fell from confusion to dismay. "He said he talked to you about it," he said, less certainly.

She pulled the letter out and flung it at him. "That's all the talking he did!"

Grenn unfolded the letter and read it, his brows growing more furrowed. "I know you're worried about him," he said, attempting to sound reassuring.

"He might die," she pointed out, though she hardly felt it should be necessary. Shouldn't the Watch know that better than anyone? They were always recruiting.

He was gaining assurance rather than losing it, she noted with dismay. "Ma'am, I promise, Jon knows how to survive beyond the Wall. We've all been inside, we go on rangings with partners."

"Did he take anyone with him?"

Grenn hesitated. "No, we . . . we couldn't spare anyone. Not for something personal."

Wouldn't spare them, her mind translated. _They think this errand of his as foolhardy as I do._

Sansa's mind raced. "I'm not one of your Watchmen. If you can spare me some equipment—"

"No." His voice was firm, and Sansa knew he would not budge on this point. The other one came to stand next to him, and she could hardly barrel past them both. "You haven't got any training, you don't know nothing about what's inside."

This would not be won by a battle of wills. Fear had made her stupid. Petyr wasn't here anymore, but she could still make use of his lessons. Sansa turned, putting her back to them. She allowed the tears she'd been holding back to rise to her eyes for the first time, and let herself be seen dashing them away.

"He knows how to survive in there, you said?" she asked, her voice catching.

"Yes, ma'am." He sounded relieved that she was no longer shouting. "He's got a gas mask and plenty of filters, and he knows how to cover himself good, and he's got a gun with some bullets. He's been inside a dozen times or more, I swear it. We wouldn't have let him otherwise."

Sansa sniffed. Pyp approached her awkwardly and patted her on the shoulder. "It's all right, Miss Stark. He knows what he's doing, and he’s a damn good shot. Why, he'll be back before you know it."

"Do you really think so?"

"I do, I do," he said, attempting to be soothing. "If anyone can do it, Jon can."

Sansa heaved in a big wet breath and let it out. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you. It's only that I'm so worried . . ."

"I can't blame you for that," Grenn said, handing her back the letter she'd thrown at him. "Anyone would be worried after getting this. If I'd known he was going to do such a shit job of it—sorry, ma'am—I'd have knocked some sense into him first."

She clasped the letter to her heart and smiled tremulously. "You'll let me know if you hear anything, won't you? Or—or if something happens?"

Of course, of course, they assured her, gently shepherding her toward the door. She let herself be herded, thanking them profusely all the while, and stepped back outside into the sunlight.

Once she was out of sight of "Castle Black," she straightened her spine and let the meek air fall from her shoulders.

Grenn had unwittingly given her a list of supplies. A gas mask, filters, a gun, bullets, and clothing from head to toe. She had most of those, and she reckoned she could find the rest easily enough. Now all she needed was a way in.

**Author's Note:**

> I am a super inconsistent writer and slow updater, so bear with me.
> 
> [say hi on tumblr](http://subjunctivemood.tumblr.com)


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